The present invention broadly relates to storage devices and, more specifically, pertains to a new and improved construction of an apparatus for forming a spiral-layered coiled stack of printed products.
Generally speaking, the apparatus of the present invention is intended for forming a spiral-layered coiled stack from substantially two-dimensional flat structures or entities, especially printed or printing products, continuously arriving in imbricated formation and comprises a delivery conveyor for delivering the imbricated formation, a conveyor discharge station of the delivery conveyor, and a rotary driven stack support arranged beneath the conveyor discharge station and defining an upright axis of rotation. The rotary driven stack support and at least the conveyor discharge station of the delivery conveyor are adjustable in height in relation to one another.
Such an apparatus is known, for instance, from the German Patent Publication No. 2,518,374, published Dec. 11, 1975, which is substantially identical in content to the U.S. Pat. No. 4,274,623, granted June 23, 1981. With this known apparatus, stable coiled stacks can be produced from two-dimensional flat structures or entities, even when these two-dimensional flat structures arrive in rapid sequence. The storage capacity of these stacks exceeds that of conventional, substantially block-shaped stacks by a multiple factor. A further advantage of the coiled stacks resides in the fact that the imbricated formation, although deformed, persists in the stack, which permits immediately re-establish the imbricated formation when disassembling the stack.
However, stacks formed by this known apparatus become relatively very high so that their manipulation, for instance, their transport and storage within a printing plant, is difficult. Furthermore, the storage capacity of stacks formed by this known apparatus, whose height is naturally limited by operating conditions, does not yet suffice to, for instance, accommodate the major portion of one edition of partially completed products for a newspaper or a magazine.